What’s the difference between a level 78 paladin and a level 80 paladin? Gear and experience. I learned this tonight when I put Artruis the Heartless is his place. You may or may not remember my frustrations with him, and how once I got help and killed him, I was stuck with the Frenzyhearts when I wanted the Oracles. Well, I was tolerant of that because the main reason I wanted the Oracles was for the chance at a Green Proto-drake Mount, found at a 2% or so clip inside the Oracle’s Mysterious Egg. At the time, I couldn’t have flown the thing if I’d gotten it, so I reluctantly moved on.

Times have changed. I now have my Artisan Flying Skill, and as such could take that Green Proto Drake for a spin, should I someday be lucky enough to get one. However, one obstacle stood in my way: Artruis. Like Luke Skywalker with Darth Vader, I had to face Artruis again. I decided to solo him, but with a new strategy. For one, I’m ret again, whereas last time I was prot. I simply couldn’t wear him down last time. For my second trick, I was going to use my Seal of Vengeance on him for it’s stacking damage increase, versus my Seal of Justice or Martyr (the former is useless since he can’t be stunned, while the latter simply wears down my health bar too much). Lastly, I knew this time going in that he was primarily a frost mage, so I used my Frost Resistance Aura to counter that. This, along with my Icebane Girdle gave me over 200 points of frost resistance. I fired up my Blessing of Kings, pulled out my Claymore of the Prophet (vs. the Savage Cobalt Slicer from last time), took a deep breath, and made the leap.

The result? He could hardly get me under 95% health this time. Hell, yeah! I wore him down in no time to the point where I had to pick my captive to kill. This is where I almost died, actually, since I was having trouble isolating the Frenzyheat captive in the scrum. With both of them beating on me, I dipped below 40% health before the Frenzyheart hoodlum was dropped. The Oracle captive covered for me while I tossed off a Holy Light spell to get myself back up to snuff. Not long after, Artruis was no more. I was so psyched, I almost forgot to accept the Oracle captive’s quest. That would have been a royally boneheaded move, there.

I feel redeemed now. I’ve fixed the biggest error in Gav’s adventuring career to date, and I did it by myself. I feel like I’ve accomplished something. Now, only four more days or so of doing their dailies until I can hit Revered and start entering the Proto-Drake lottery. It never ends, does it?

Hi, I’m Alphasim . I’ve been playing World of WarCraft for four years now and my main is a level 85 human paladin named Gavelier. Gav features prominently here at Alazar so you'll get to know him and his guild.

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